Donald Trump’s victory was not a huge shock – after all, polls suggested a very close race. The speed with which it was resolved was more surprising. Some recent US elections have taken days to play out, but this time, we knew the outcome by the next morning.
Markets have initially rallied. The S&P 500 reached a record high, and the DXY index (which measures the value of the dollar against a basket of currencies) ticked up from 103 to almost 105. It might be tempting to interpret this as a sign that another Trump presidency will be good for markets, but some think early gains had less to do with prospects for the US economy and more to do with certainty. Investors had braced themselves for the nightmarish scenario of recounts and lawsuits if the vote was too close to call.